Thursday, 18 February 2010

Mini Panettone with Chocolate, Nuts and Dried Cranberries

Last year, you may remember that I went to the Summer BBC Good Food Show with Miele. I was given a goodie bag from Miele that contained a cook book. The book, called Baking, Roasting and Cooking with the Miele Oven, has some of the most beautiful food porn photos that you could ever hope to find in a cookery book. I regularly pick it up just to have a quick drool! One of the recipes that makes me want to rip the page out and gobble up the photo is that of the mini panettone with cranberries, complete with icing sugar softly falling.

Here is my version, a nice treat for breakfast. I used my bread machine to do the kneading and was rewarded with wonderful, light buns - more like brioche buns than panettone - but equally delicious. In the book the recipe calls for 60g of nougat - which I didn't have but will try and get for next time - and they used dark chocolate, which I replaced with Green & Blacks Butterscotch chocolate, which has those addictive crunchy toffee bits in it.

Mini Panettone with Butterscotch Chocolate, Macadamia Nuts and CranberriesAdapted from the Miele Oven Cookery BookI added the chocolate at the end with a quick knead as I didn't want it to melt in the bread machine. The texture is more like a brioche than a traditional panettone.

Put all the ingredients, except the chocolate, into the bread machine in the correct order for your machine, using the raisin compartment (if you have one) for the nuts and cranberries.

When it comes to the milk, you may need less or more, keep an eye on it and add as necessary to make a smooth, soft dough.

When the dough is ready, take out and knead in the chopped chocolate by hand until mixed in.

Cut it into about 8 pieces and roll into balls. Pop into small pudding basins or ramekins that have been lined with non-stick baking parchment. Cover and leave to rise for about 15 minutes or until they have doubled in size.

Bake in a pre-heated oven 180ºC/350ºF for about 12-15 minutes until golden brown. Remove and cool on a wire rack.

I'm also submitting this to YeastSpotting, which is a weekly showcase of yeasted baked goods and dishes with bread as a main ingredient. If you love baking with yeast, check out the beautiful breads and other yeast recipes here.There's also an awesome authentic panettone recipe, which I've been eyeing for a while!

As I told you on Twitter these are stunning! Haven't seen such perfect little panettone in ages and love the nuts, chocolate and dried cranberries you mixed in! Gorgeous and I am so making these! Love them and grabbing them up for my MM! Thanks, honey!

Ooh I have been drooling over that book too but not made anything yet, though am very tempted now as these look so good and I adore brioche and pannetone! I do have some dried cranberries from xmas so think will have to put to good use!

OK, so I tried these today. I omitted the dried fruit, used regular chocolate chips and swap the macadamia for pecans that I caramelized in maple syrup. They were very good, but I didn't get much luck with them rising. They really rose once they started baking. I'll try them again but will use self-raising flour next time

Hi Nic - well, I'll definitely increase the yeast next time. I think the problem comes mainly from the fact that, with my BM, you have to put the liquid in first so I put all the milk, then the dough was too sticky and I added some flour, so I must have added too much. Maybe I should also mention that it was raining here on Sunday and I always have problems making the dough just right when it's humid outside.And I did put them on the radiator to rise but that didn't help :(